The overly prim response should’ve made him laugh. But he continued to feel the remembered terror in her body, her heart racing so fast he thought it might bruise itself against her ribs. Keeping one arm around her body, the other in her hair, he crushed her to him, knowing she needed the sensation, but also knowing she’d never ask for it. Not now.
Slowly, the stiffness drained out of her, one of her hands creeping under his T-shirt to spread out over his pulse. Her hand was cool, or maybe it was that his body was too hot. As always, he couldn’t control his reactions around her. It didn’t matter. Instead of shoring up his shields, all he wanted to do was offer comfort, give her a way out of that dark room where she’d been trapped without sight, without sound, without touch.
“Tiara told me she was in Paris not long ago.”
Startled at her choice of subject, he slid his hand down to her nape, squeezing gently. “Hmm.”
“She said she went to visit her parents.” Her fingers stroked over his skin in a touch that reached far deeper than anyone else ever had. “She said her mother made her cake and coffee every afternoon, and brushed her hair for her every night, while her dad splurged on a day spa for both her and her mother, took them shopping, and bought chocolate for her to snack on on the airjet ride home.”
Dev looked down, but Katya had tucked her head against him, her lashes delicate fans against her cheeks. “Sounds like she was spoiled.”
“That’s what she said, too.” Those fingers stroked lower, curving over his ribs. He knew he should stop her before she inadvertently went too far, but he didn’t. Because even now, her skin was a little clammy, her heart jittery.
“What else did Ti share?” Shifting his hold, he closed his hand over her thigh.
She stayed put—though he felt the tremors beneath her skin. “That she expects any man who wants her to spoil her just as badly.”
“Was Tag in the room when she said that?”
“Of course.”
He glimpsed the faintest shadow of a smile. “You think she was teasing him.”
“I know she was teasing him. It’s amazing how much the eyes can say.”
“You must’ve learned to read expressions very early in the Net,” he said, trying to ignore the fact that her fingers were tracing the top edge of his jeans in a maddening caress. “No one can control every minute movement.”
“It’s much more difficult with the Silent,” she murmured, tucking her fingers at his hip, a single aching centimeter under his waistband. “Everything’s in very small increments.”
“Yeah?” Reaching down, he tugged at her hand—no man was that good.
She resisted. “You feel interesting here.” The brush of her thumb over his hip bone.
Dear God in heaven. “Katya,” he all but groaned, “unless you want to be stripped naked in about two seconds flat, you can’t keep your hand there.” He was already hard beneath her. One more touch and he’d snap.
He saw her swallow, but she didn’t remove her hand. “The sensations would be incredible,” she murmured. “If we were naked.”
“Jesus.” Pulling off her hand before he gave in to temptation, he closed his own around it. “You’re mad at me, remember?”
“Yes. But according to Tiara, sexual contact doesn’t necessarily have to involve an emotional tie.”
Dev wondered exactly how much time Ti and Katya had been spending together. “She was probably trying to jerk Tag’s chain.”
A frown. “Even so, it’s true, isn’t it? People can have sex without liking each other.”
“Yes.” It was an answer gritted out through clenched teeth.
Her eyes focused on him. “Have you ever had it with someone you disliked?”
“No.” He didn’t have to think about it. “I tend to take sex seriously.”
A pause. “Yet you’re aroused by me.” Those eyes locked with his again, and his gut clenched against a bruiser of a sucker punch. Because Katya wasn’t scared anymore. She was pissed.
“And I,” she continued, “am very much someone you dislike.”
Leaning forward, he tugged back her head. “I didn’t realize you were so good at seduction.”
A little flush across her cheekbones. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“So it wasn’t planned,” he murmured, feeling his body all but purr. “That means you can’t resist the enemy either.”
“I’ll get over it.” A snapped statement. “Now go.”
He let her scramble off his lap . . . only because he knew that one second longer and he’d have followed through on his threat of ripping off her clothes, feasting on the exquisite nakedness of her skin. But he couldn’t resist taking her lips. It was a short, wild contact filled with anger on both sides. But there was something beneath the anger, a savage kind of need that shocked the hell out of him and left her staring in confusion.
PETROKOV FAMILY ARCHIVES
Letter dated October 1, 1977
Dearest Matthew,